You’re not alone… #suicideprevention #8Sunday

This 8 Sunday also serves as the kick off of my participation in the Suicide Prevention Week Authors Care Hop. This excerpt is from my current work in progress. Chloe is talking with Brian, a 13-year-old shape-shifter who just learned he is a bear shifter when he started to turn in public a few days ago. His mother kicked him out, and he’s staying with Chloe and her shifter boyfriend Jorge. Chloe has just shared how her mom left when she was ten and sent her away a few months ago when Chloe tracked her down.

“Point is, you’re not alone in the messed up parent department. Maybe your mom will come around yet.”

His raised eyebrows look highly skeptical. “But you said this Christopher guy that’s coming—his parents disowned him when he went shifter.”

I grin, glad to see and feel his tension easing. “Not really, no, but you’ve got us. And you’ll have Christopher.”

As a person who has struggled with depression my whole life, I’ve been filled with suicidal thoughts many times. What has always kept me going at the hardest moments is the people around me who show me support and love. I was fortunate to have friends and family. There are many organizations filled with caring people for those who aren’t so fortunate. For more information on Suicide Prevention Week, visit the official Facebook page.

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My son spent over 4 years struggling to deal with severe PTSD and TBI from his 15 months in Iraq. On Jan. 2, 2011, he decided he could no longer do it and completed suicide. He was 25 and my oldest child, my sunshine, my pride and joy and my friend. We tried for many years to get him help, he was surrounded by loving family and friends, but I think sometimes he felt like a failure because he wasn’t able to handle it on his own. My sister and her husband are both psychologists so there was never any stigma about getting help. To say that his death devastated all of us is an understatement. I will never be the person I use to be, a part of me will be broken until I’m with him again. Thank you for bringing this subject out in the open, I talk about it often. My son didn’t do this to hurt us, he just wanted the pain to stop, I know that if he had been thinking clearly, knowing all the pain that we would be in, he never would have done this, he didn’t have a mean bone in his body. We talked about suicide often, the extra hurt that came when someone chooses to take their life and he promised me that if he ever felt like that, he would come to me. But one night after not sleeping for days and tired of the sounds and smells of battle assaulting him, he broke his promise and my heart. His last words were “I don’t want to die” he just wanted the pain to stop. Suicide needs to be taken out of the closet, held like a dirty little secret, a brand of shame that only adds to the ones that attempt and the survivors. Only taking it out into the light of day and talking about it loudly instead of whispering in disgust will we then start to put a halt to this overwhelming tide of suicide.

It is definitely true that some things overwhelm people more than any amount of help and support can overcome. Life is so hard, and society definitely places a lot of pressure on people to handle things on their own or just get over it. Some days I only make it through because I let myself be OK with not getting over it right that second. And I am lucky that I have not experienced anything nearly as traumatizing as being in war. Thanks for sharing your story and helping to spread compassion and empathy for those who suffer and the families who love them.